


over the threshold

by becuille



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It, Power Play, Smut, Spoilers for Book 2: The Wicked King, Verbal Bondage, vaguely queen of nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-25 23:34:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20034169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becuille/pseuds/becuille
Summary: As much as he has dreamed of how her tongue tastes and how the ridges of her teeth feel on his lips, of her honey breath and sweet moans when he parts her lips, he keeps his mouth shut. He wouldn’t want to disobey her order so soon, would he? Who knows what kind of hellfire Jude might yet unleash upon him.





	over the threshold

Jude storms into his quarters like a thundercloud, fury in her eyes, and his doors slam shut behind her. Looking like that there is no way he could deny her an audience, even now that it is possible. 

Her palms slam into his chest, and for a second he considers fighting her off, or calling for a guard. She pushes him backwards, his eyes wide, until he stumbles and almost loses his footing as he hits his bed. She shoves him down and Cardan huffs out a harsh breath in surprise at her strength.

“A formal, public, grovelling pardon from the High King wasn’t enough, I take it, and you’ve come for more.”

“Shut up. I’m sick of hearing you.”

He had grovelled. Well, as much as his pride and position allowed, which was probably inadequate. But what did she expect from him, to kneel and lick the dirt from her boots? Her eyes looking up at him onto the dais had burned with anger that had nearly turned his stomach to lead.

“If you’ve come to kill me, I’m sure you don’t need reminding that the crown will not-”

“Fuck the crown,” Jude cuts him off. “And I won’t tell you again, shut your mouth.”

Her lips are on his, her fists in his collar, and the force of her blind rage on him sends him stumbling backwards inelegantly. He reaches for a bedpost to steady himself. As much as he has dreamed of how her tongue tastes and how the ridges of her teeth feel on his lips, of her honey breath and sweet moans when he parts her lips, he keeps his mouth shut. He wouldn’t want to disobey her order so soon, would he? Who knows what kind of hellfire Jude might yet unleash upon him.

“You’re a bastard,” Jude says between pressing her mouth again and again on his closed lips. He keeps them pressed together like a vice, as if her voice could still compel him. “Kiss me, you arrogant, insufferable prick.”

“As you bid, my Queen,” Cardan replies, lips curling, then does as Jude commands. 

Jude’s mouth parts immediately as if she has been parched of him. She tastes better than his memory. Her tongue pushes into his mouth, relearning the shapes of him, tasting all she can reach. Cardan gives back as good as he gets, holding her steady by her hair and her jaw, pulling her against him as close as he can get the two of them with them still being two separate bodies.

His tongue slides over Jude’s lips like it might if he were allowed between her thighs. He would even kneel when he did it, if it would please her. Cardan pulls back from her to move to undress her, to compose himself, to grovel or to curse her, but a firm hand keeps him lying on his back, looking up at her. 

“Don’t move,” Jude commands, voice cold and determined. “Not a bone in your body, until I say.” She clearly hasn’t gotten out of the mindset of being able to control Cardan’s every move, but his body still goes rigid at her words. Her voice rolls down his bones and fixes him in place, without any magic. He would blindly follow her every word if it might earn him back her favour. 

She hooks one golden thigh over him ungracefully, hiking up her skirts. She tugs at the neck of his shirt, exposing his neck and his chest to the cool night air, and her shaking hands try in vain to remove his belt. She grunts in frustration, unable to undo the fastenings in her haste,

“Are you sure I can’t assist you, my Queen?” Cardan says.

Jude slips a knife out from her boot and jerks the cool steel under his clothing from his ankle to thigh, cutting a jagged slice into his pants. He feels bared, half naked while she still wears her leathers and boots, and he shivers.

She rids herself of her doublet and undergarments soon enough, peeling them from her sweat soaked body. Her skin is more golden than he remembered, and there are more spatterings of golden brown freckles across her arms and collar where she has been sunkissed in her mortal world. She is even more slender, but her body is less taut and muscled. More human, he realises. The sight of her is a relief, like the dusk finally setting again on the eve of the solstice.

The feeling of Jude pressing him into her jolts Cardan into the present. She is so warm and wet and relentless around him. He groans when the length of him is finally seated inside her. Jude’s inexperience is unrecognisable, but she always was a quick learner. He has years of swordsmanship on her, yet she bested him. She fucks herself onto him as if it is her sole purpose to live, like her cunt was made just for him. Her thighs quickly shake from the exertion; she really has grown weak in her absence. He could easily overpower her now, he could turn her over and fuck her any way he wanted. But he doesn’t. Cardan lies still, obeying his queen’s command.

Faeries do not fuck. Faeries dally, roil, tumble, and frolic, but they do not fuck like mortals. Or like beasts. Cardan has too often been reminded that he has not been lying with a faerie. 

“You are wild,” he says to her. He means to remind her that she is not like him, she is other, she should not be worthy of him. But they do not come out as intended, but rather in soft reverence. She bucks back onto him faster at his words, groaning. Her eyes are closed and head thrown back, cheeks flushed blood red with effort. 

Jude is wanton and rushed, like her fleeting mayfly life will not allow her enough time to enjoy him the way faeries enjoy each other. When Cardan was with Nicasia, they spent hours, whole nights sprawling into weeks exploring each other’s bodies. They had all the time in the world to lie in the grass, and no goal other than to find their own pleasure. Jude cares for his pleasure secondary to her own. No faerie has ever treated him so cruelly, so indifferently. He hates how it makes him want her even more. 

Cardan can do nothing but allow grunts and soft moans to slip past his lips, or else curses or praises might belie him. He cannot buck up into her, he can’t grab onto her hips and push her onto her belly, her face in his pillows and rut into her. He would remind Jude that he is her king, and his pleasure is not simply for her entertainment. He would fuck himself into her like an animal, how she clearly wants to be fucked, his fist in her hair, his teeth grazing her slim neck. By the stars, he wants it.

But he is powerless under her spell. He can’t reach to smooth the tangled, brown hair from her eyes to watch her face as she finishes. He can’t lean up to take her lips in his, to make her taste the blood in his mouth or the fire in his belly. But Cardan would endure even this torment to earn her forgiveness.

“Jude,” Cardan calls out. He does not beg, though it is not without effort. _I belong to you, only you_, he wants to say. _Do what you will with me_. He bites down harder on his tongue.

Jude’s eyes open, ablaze, one hand pressed to his stomach, as if she still needs to keep him in place, the other working on herself. Her eyes bore into his as she comes with a gasp. It rolls in waves through her body, stuttering and shaking as she tightens her grip on him. Cardan can’t take his eyes from her. She is so human. 

“You may move,” Jude says once her breath is caught, voice cracked and quiet. 

Cardan lurches up to meet her like a beast let free of its leash, keeping himself deep inside her. She wraps her legs around him instinctively, staying as close to him as she can. He presses his lips to hers and tastes salt. Once, drinking from the cup of her kisses might have been enough to quench his thirst. Not any longer.

She helps him to fuck her, doing her best to lift herself up and lower herself down through her exhaustion, but she is weary, so he places both hands around her waist and lifts her. She is so slight he could move her with ease, but her stubbornness wouldn’t permit it, so she fucks him to her own rhythm as she pleases. Between faeries, it can be like a dance, beautiful and languorous, but they are disharmonious and out of sync. Fucking Jude is more akin to fighting, he thinks. 

When he is close, Cardan sinks his face into her neck, her sweat-soaked hair clinging to his skin and her hummingbird pulse thrumming beneath him. He says her name over and over. 

He buries himself inside her to the hilt and spills in her. Jude’s nails dig into his back and she shudders alongside him. Cardan lowers them both down gently, allowing her to lie herself across him, still tangled. As the dawn rises, as if held by command, neither one of them move a bone in their body, until sleep steals them both away.

**Author's Note:**

> hi talk to me on [tumblr](http://voltairesdick.tumblr.com/)


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